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If I upgraded to Crossfire

nlel1975

nlel1975

nlel1975

Soldato
Joined
22 May 2007
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UK
Would this PSU be good enough...

Antec Basiq 550W with 1x 6 + 2 (8pin) connector and 1x 6 pin connector.

I understand modern graphics cards like the MSI Radeon 5850 Twin Frozr use 2x 6 pin PCI-E connectors now or 1x 8 pin and 1 x 6 pin.

Would this mean that I simply do not have enough PCI-E connectors provided by my PSU to run Crossfire.

How many more would I need for 2x Radeon 5850 and could it be achieved with adapters... also is 32a on 12v enough for Crossfire
 
Use the 12v figure as a guide to your actual psu wattage. 32a = 384watts. This is roughly what a 5850 crossfire setup will use under load. Most sites give the power consumption from the wall, so you just need to multiply by .85 (effeciency rating of most psus).

Pushing any PSU beyond 80% is never a good idea. Running it constantly at or above 100% is asking for trouble. Look for a PSU with a 12v rating above 500w. A larger psu will help with future upgrades.
 
In my view 550W not going to be enough for crossfire on those cards. It may run it fine but it's pushing the PSU to its limit.

Also, what's your resolution ? If it's not very high it would probably be a better idea to try and sell your current card and get a single card from the 6000 series.
 
mikkyh said:
In my view 550W not going to be enough for crossfire on those cards. It may run it fine but it's pushing the PSU to its limit.

Also, what's your resolution ? If it's not very high it would probably be a better idea to try and sell your current card and get a single card from the 6000 series.
Click to expand...

yes i would sell up and go for the 6950 what can be unlocked to 6970.. thats what i will be doing in a few months
 
Sgt Tackleberry said:
yes i would sell up and go for the 6950 what can be unlocked to 6970.. thats what i will be doing in a few months
Click to expand...

Thanks guys, did not realise the 6000 series of cards only needed 1 PCI-E connector... I will keep the 5850 for the foreseeable future as I am not really likely to go crossfire anyway and certainly wont now that I would either have to sell up or buy a better PSU.

Selling up could be risky as even though they require 1 PCI-E connector my 550W PSU would still be on the edge.

I had a look at ocUK PSUs at those in the £ 38 - £ 55 ex VAT range are all 2x PCI-E connector only when you go to 650W do you start to see some with 4 PCI-e connectors... cheapest I found was from XFX at £ 55.31 then the Antec Truepower 650W recommended above for £ 61.30

If I had my time again I would have bought one of those two to future proof a bit but I am happy with what I have.
 
Sgt Tackleberry said:
yes i would sell up and go for the 6950 what can be unlocked to 6970.. thats what i will be doing in a few months
Click to expand...
Judging by OP's first post, it sounded like he doesn't have a 5850 yet. He's probably considering getting one first, and a 2nd one later in the future and was wondering if his current PSU will be up to it.

I still think best bet would be to go 6850 for around £125 and add another in the future...since he sounded like he won't be to spend over £200 on a card right now. And 6850 crossfire's total system power consumption in furmark is only around 385W (lower than a single GTX470):
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/17/

So still plenty of headroom, even with overclocking.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
Judging by OP's first post, it sounded like he doesn't have a 5850 yet. He's probably considering getting one first, and a 2nd one later in the future and was wondering if his current PSU will be up to it.

I still think best bet would be to go 6850 for around £125 and add another in the future...since he sounded like he won't be to spend over £200 on a card right now. And 6850 crossfire's total system power consumption in furmark is only around 385W (lower than a single GTX470):
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/17/

So still plenty of headroom, even with overclocking.
Click to expand...

See the post above yours : P

Anyone, to the OP...you don't really to being going with the cheapest PSU you can find anyway, even if it has a high wattage. But I don't see anything wrong with just sticking with your 5850 for now.
 
mikkyh said:
See the post above yours : P

Anyone, to the OP...you don't really to being going with the cheapest PSU you can find anyway, even if it has a high wattage. But I don't see anything wrong with just sticking with your 5850 for now.
Click to expand...

Yeah and if future cards have lower power consumption and only require 1 PCI-E connector then maybe my 550W will be able to cope with future cards....

I only just bought the 5850 so am going to get some use out of it first.
 
nlel1975 said:
Yeah and if future cards have lower power consumption and only require 1 PCI-E connector then maybe my 550W will be able to cope with future cards....

I only just bought the 5850 so am going to get some use out of it first.
Click to expand...

Remember, it'll probably be harder to sell the longer you've owned it.
 
mikkyh said:
Remember, it'll probably be harder to sell the longer you've owned it.
Click to expand...

I will most probably sell the whole system in about a years time and upgrade... I have done well in the past selling my 6 month to 1 year old systems locally for about £ 50 to £ 80 less then I actually paid for them.

There seems to be a gap in the market locally for relatively new overclocked custom built systems ... although this time I fear I might pay over the odds for a Sandybridge setup when I would be better off going for a cheaper i5 760 setup with a view to selling the lot in a year.

Then again Sandybridge in a year will still be relatively new whereas i5 760 will be quite old by then.
 
mikkyh said:
See the post above yours : P
Click to expand...
lol that's like being posted less than a minute before I made my post so I didn't see that; I was only making the assumption that he doesn't own a 5850 because he sounded like he wasn't certain about how many and of what PCI-E connector 5850 needed in his 1st post.

To be honest, Crysis and Metro2033 aside, there's barely any game that an overclocked 5850 cannot handle at 1920 res 4xAA 16xAF. I myself only just recently upgrading to the MSI 5850 Twin FrozR myself, and I'm fairly confident that it will be more than fast enough last me till my next upgrade, probably something like a 2nd/3rd gen 28nm GPU card.
 
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I supose future cards with one PCI-E Slot will cope ok . . Depends how long you can wait . . Buying the 6950 though is a good idea . . . And this overclocks really well from what a friend told me :)
 
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